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Story:Conquest/Zhanar
Zhanar Taylan is a main character in Conquest. In fifteen short years, she has adopted the mantle of beggar, Mendicant, courtesan, lady, and all things in between. After rising to nobility in Groland, she finds that time, circumstance, and diverging moralities have alienated her from the family she once prized above all. To clutch at a sense of purpose, she uses guile and her vast wealth to assist Oavyce in his campaign of destruction. Profile Appearance As the Lady of a relatively wealthy household (for Groland), Zhanar attempts to conduct herself in an elegant style far removed from her upbringings. At 5'5" (165 cm), slender, with lightly bronzed skin, she both looks in and out of place among the natives of Groland, as the sharp angles of her face and more narrowed eyes suggest a mixed heritage. She has straight dark chestnut hair that is partially kept up in a sleek bun, adorned with a hair stick or two. Some bangs and a longer portion of hair fall down the left side of her face so as to slightly obscure it. She has a rather inordinate fondness for chime-like earrings and bangles crafted of semiprecious stone. Zhanar's favored clothing consists of an asymmetric, one-sleeve blouse (on the left side) of a dark color patterned with gold. The sleeve is completely black, as is the sleeveless vest she wears that wraps around her shoulderblades and ends above her waist. A black cloth sash loops around her left shoulder and extends to her knees. Despite the complexity of the rest of her ensemble, she normally wears a plain black pair of dress pants and sturdy black shoes. Zhanar is often seen with some sort of accessory in hand, which is usually an ornate, gold-leafed fan. She has no idea what a "battle fan" would even entail and is satisfied with its uses as a cooling agent and mask. Her clothing and hair conceal some number of stilettos; to ask the exact location and count of these would be unwise. Gallery File:Fans self.png|SELF Personality The scrappy and dangerous streets of Isfana, a slum of western Ordell, bred in Zhanar a sharp tongue and sharper loyalty towards her family. She never knew her father, and as such her mother Aruzahn, a firm yet playful bastion of Church teaching, exerted sole parental influence. When brother Korem came along three years later (again, without a lingering father), Zhanar found in his reserved and cerebral nature a perfect foil and a best friend. As years passed begging and sloughing through menial, taxing, and unfulfilling jobs, a desire to bring her family to a brighter future festered and eventually resulted in Zhanar's enrollment in a local novitiate. Her personality and expectation of God as a just deliverer of the poor clashed with the Mendicant convent she was assigned to, and Korem received many letters complaining of prude and pointless formalities. From the moment she left the convent to ostensibly conduct a mission of poverty and succor in the wild jungles of Groland, Zhanar began plotting a path to riches and independence. GOES DOWN HERE BUT I'M NOT SURE OF THE DETAILS YET. SHADY DEALINGS/BLACKMAIL/???/PROFIT/HUSBAND PROVIDES ACCESS TO UPPER ECHELON BUT HE'S KIND OF CONTROLLING AND INTIMIDATING/OH LOOK HE KICKED THE BUCKET, TIME TO FINALLY FIND MY FAMILY/...fuck. After years of ascending the social ladder by carefully crafting words and relationships, Zhanar has reached a position where she can free her tongue and temperment once more. Candid, vocal, and incapable of surrendering her somewhat warped vision of the Church, she nonetheless harbors a sense of failure after the loss of her husband and inability to reunite with her family. It is said that idle hands are the devil's playthings - in the manicured hands and calloused soul of Zhanar Taylan, God works in mysterious, contradictory, and fatal ways. Selected Letters Age 13 Dear Korem, Mother Euphemia finally allowed me to write letters after scrapping all my other ones. The other girls have all been sending letters to their family so I thought I would do so too. I guess that before one can learn about God one has to learn how to be a master author??? But now that I've passed her writing class (which no one else had to take) I can send these to you whenever I want without her acting like a bat over my shoulder. Hopefully it does not shame you to receive a note from such a "costtic and hotty" sister! I think that all I learn in Euphemia's classes are new words to tell people they are stupid. Speaking of stupid things, I was placed in the order of Ropocheche instead of Zebbeb! I told them I wanted to be an Artist because I love all the great paintings and statues in the central church and where all the other novice's live. But the elders told me that because of my zodiac I have to be a mendicant and be poor and wander around Trallia. I don't think they understand that that's kind of the opposite reason why I became a novice? When I explained this they gave me a strange look and didn't say anything else. Otherwise, life at the mendicant convent is sort of nice. It's clean and we get food three times a day! Please tell mother that I am fine and that I hope you two are doing well. Mother Euphemia is like her when she has too much beer, and thirty years older and ugly instead of how mother is beautifull. Maybe do not tell her that last part she could take it the wrong way. But I am trusting you to read the rest of this letter to her, and to write, whatever she wants in your responses. I included some money that I made from washing the habits so you can pay to write me back. Well, my hand is getting tired now, so I will leave you by saying that I love you and even though we are far away now, I will think of you and mother always. P.S. (This means "thing you add at the end of a letter that is important to look fancy") Throw sand at Rhis for me if he steals our begging spot by the butcher's again. ---- ... ---- Age 15 My dear Korem, In your last letter you complained that your writing was of poor quality, then I hope you will forgive me for my scribbling! I'm taking some time away from my duties to write you this short note, because I absolutely need to tell you what I pulled off yesterday. There's a place in the Healers' sanctum where one can make a donation to light a candle for the sick, and it helps pay for their education. The Healers have all the money they need, though, because they actually are allowed to go out and perform great works and get paid for it! So I decided to sneak in while they were off gathering herbs or something and light all their candles without donating. Euphemia suspected me, of course, but my friend Izin covered for me. She's quite smart and fools everyone into thinking she's a perfect angel. Of course, we're best friends. She agrees with me that the Mendicants should have a donation box instead. Sometimes I find it difficult to understand how each Aspect of God is supposed to fit together. Each day I learn a little more of the mysteries of the church and how we can't ever hope to fully understand the wonder of God. God empties Itself to fill humanity with Its love, isn't that a beautiful thing that also really doesn't make sense? Another mystery: We often sing the antiphon "God is the bow, the arrow is the soul", which has special meaning to Mendicants, as we are chosen to fly far across Trallia helping those in need. I thought of something interesting yesterday, though. Aren't we all supposed to be working to grow closer to God, and don't we often take paths that bring us away from It? Maybe a better description would be, "The flesh is the bow, the arrow is the soul, and the target is God". After all, if one is shooting a bow, one needs something to aim at, even if sometimes our aim isn't true. Time is short, and Euphemia will be calling soon to set another task upon me. Know that I think of you daily, and that when you look at the stars, even though you stand in the slums, I am standing with you in awe at the same heavens. Understand all that I want to say to you, and give mother all my love. P.S. Of course I didn't forget your birthday, I just saved it for the special P.S. part. Happy 13th, my precious (and not so little anymore) brother. I had to steal this icon of Hashmurin from an adept, try to treasure it more than he did! Hashmurin is still your favorite, yes? ---- ... ---- Age 17 Korem, There's something I need to tell you that I can't disguise with words any longer. I haven't been honest about the Novitiate's plans for my mission, and the hope that I could somehow return to Isfana. Every attempt I make to reach back to you and mother is met by an overpowering resistance to send me into an exile. I have bared my soul to God, I have shed my flesh and bone for so long, yet even our ties to family are demanded. Yet I know that if I were to reject what God has given to me at the Novitiate, nothing would change. I would come back to the slums simply a more pious street rat than before, wouldn't that be helpful? I've tried to hide this bitter truth from you, to cling on to the hope of reunion, and I hope - I know - you will understand. It's such a strange feeling, my dear brother. To waver between rage and surrender to God so often, day by day, second by second. Perhaps it is an indication of Its grace that in my moments of greatest weakness, I turn back to God, and to you. Know that you are the only one who reads my heart, that I feel that I am unknown to the very people I live with. When I grovel in the dust with my fellow Mendicants, I do not feel the bond I share with you. The way they flaunt their newfound asceticism is so disgusting it's hilarious. Congratulations, you now know the squalor that half of Isfana has lived with every day of their lives!!! I cannot even hold Izin in confidence, and in a week's time she and I will leave for our mission in Groland. There is a closeness between us, but also a distance given our differing upbringings. I am constantly thinking of a way to change my path to one that will bring me closer to you and to a new relationship with God, and it may involve abandoning my Mendicant vows. The path of Rophocheche, however, is a potentially dangerous one for women (so I hear from crones cloistered in comfortable positions), and so we must travel together for safety. Enclosed is the remainder of what I've earned, even though Euphemia declared I should sacrifice it back to the Novitiate. This is the least I can do to her, my personal demon of four years. And it is the least I can do for you, dear Korem, and for mother, before I depart for more verdant lands. The joy in receiving your last letter bleeds, because indeed, I will no longer have a reliable address for you to write to. Do not think you will be able to rid yourself of me that easily, my brother! And I beg you, do not take my silence for abandonment. Whenever I can, with whatever I have, I will send my love to you. By words, by coin, by prayer, until the day I will return, golden, to you. P.S. Know this above all else, Korem: One day I will take you and mother up to a higher ground, and I will never let you go again.